8.

The summer post turning sixteen years of age, Terrence Williams purposely kept himself busy. It was a summer to change his life, a summer to guide so much of his life to come. His family by no means were strapped for cash, more the opposite really. Both his parents worked out of want and not out necessity and there always was plenty to go around though at that they never really splurged, whatever they had they looked after.

Mum and dad were career orientated. They both loved and excelled at what they did though not so much where family time did not exist, it did exist, and it rocked. Separate careers, not working together and doing something they loved easily played a part in ensuring that family time would be well looked forward to.

At sixteen, Terrence had no idea what he wanted to do when school would come to a permanent end in a couple years' time so this particular summer would play a big part in how that future would pan out and move forward.

Three summer jobs are what he took on. One worked daytime weekday hours running from Monday right through Friday, one worked weekday evenings three times a week and the other worked weekends. Each of these jobs varied, from training and learning within a family butchers to working in a tavern then weekends in retail.

Putting in the shifts, the hours, the work, and the effort was never a problem; he worked the three months solid with gusto and took in as much as he could. Come September, he had a bank account with more money in it that he knew what to do with. Since having next to no time off for three months solid, the money accumulated as did the knowledge he gained with the various employments. With the influence his parent has had on him, Terrence would not squander his summertime earnings.

Surprisingly enough, a lot of what he learnt that summer he began to apply to his everyday life without even thinking about it and he only realized this fact when it was pointed out to him, not just the actual skills but the ethics too. The ethics have remained with him to this very day. It could be said he grew up a lot that summer. As the years went by, he put the same effort into school and college and worked some evenings and weekends as his friends, who mostly were no more than acquaintances, partied, done drugs and wasted their time away.

Money continued to accumulate faster than what it was spent, not that Terrence himself ever splurged on anything. Now at twenty-six Terrence could take a time out, take time to himself, move away for a while at least and relax. He is more than splurging now but not wasteful splurging, with the vehicle and new house he got himself ... though of course, his time away is not panning out as he may have wanted.

For him, all this park business has begun to happen, and it needs to come complete before a time can come to return to normality, and this is if a return to normality can ever possibly come. If it can come for anyone it will come for him. Thing is, did he stumble into all of this or had circumstance dictated that he would come right to it?

9.

He kind of knew of where it was that he was going to and he did know why he was going there, despite that however, he was caught off guard by a number of things. It was a little over an hour's drive to get to their destination and it was Mary who drove. Just as well she did too for Terrence was lost in a daydream for the whole duration of the trip.

From the moment they got together on this day, it was clear to Mary that Terrance was more than a little per-occupied so she simply left him be. Even upon arrival to the day's first destination, Terrence was locked in a daydream. Well, it was less a daydream, and more being lost to nothing in particular for Terrance was not dreaming of anything. His gaze locked on nothing and his mind blank for the whole journey. The car coming to a halt even failed to bring him out of his empty trance.

'Is there anything you wanna tell me?' she asks, the first words spoken since having left their estate.

'Huh?' he asks still lost in his own little world.

'Are you alright?' There is no immediate response, so she takes his arm in her hand. 'Terry ... what's wrong with you?'

'Huh ...' he says once again, this time turning towards her. 'Are we here?'

'Yeah, we are here' she says right before they both exit the vehicle.

'This is a nursing home ...'

'It is, you knew that.'

Terrence was aware of the destination he and Mary had set off for though strangely enough he did not completely take on board that information. Just as well then that he was a passenger and not the driver and that he had someone accompanying him. He may realize where he now is, still he is not fully prepared for what is about to come.

The man they have come to see is a resident here, not a visitor, not a worker but a resident. Terrence had not expected this, he had no expectations at all, still this is all coming as a bit of a surprise. An inquiry is made before being directed towards whom it is they have come to see.

'This guy lives here' Terrence says more to himself than speaking it as a statement or question.

Mary throws a glance at Terrence. She may only know him a matter of days and had no expectations of him, but it is clear that he is way out of sorts. She might have to do the talking is what she is thinking however, maybe neither her nor Terrance may get to ask anything at all, possibly not in the way they intended.

That man they have come to see is Dale Blake. He is fifty-nine years old and has spent fifteen months in this home. He probably hasn't shaved in the time since he moved here nor has looked after that facial hair. He is sitting alone wearing pajamas and a dressing gown and looking at nothing in particular. He appears as lost in his own world just as Terrance had been in his own on the way to this place.

Is it possible that in this moment both Terrence and Dale are sharing something that neither of them can fully comprehend? Had something temporarily connected them to one another or to the same kind of ... emptiness?

Mary and Terrance slowly approach Dale. How do either of them begin a conversation with someone who looks more than a little crazy and lost in an empty daze? That won't really matter for Dale speaks first.

'That place is alive you know?'

Mary throws a quick glance at Terrance and Terrance has yet to take his eyes of the guy they have come to see since the moment he realized what this Dale fellow looks like.

'Excuse me?' asks Mary.

'That place you have come to ask me about, the park and all that is in it ... it is as alive as either of you, me, or anyone else for that matter ... it feeds too. It feeds off of those who move through it ... some more than others.'

Things have been strange for at least a little while and that strangeness has stepped up a level or two.

10.

Terrence Williams and Mary Grogan went on a road trip to a nursing home a little over an hour's drive away from their small town housing estate close to the sea to talk to fifty-six year old Dale Blake, a man who had been the partner of a young lady by the name of Karen O'Neill, a lady who went for a jog one morning early April 1983 into a park she had been to many times before only on that occasion she was never to return home.

Dale says that the park in the town Terrance has moved to, a place Mary has lived in for a little over three years by this particular moment in time, is alive. Mary has also lost a loved one to this park so her interest in finding answers is a personal one. For Terrance it has become a calling, a calling possibly instigated by that very same park itself. So, perhaps on some level, what Dale says makes sense. It can't really make sense at all, can it?

How can a public forest park be alive? This Dale fellow has to be more than a little crazy, if he is, then maybe Terrence is on his own way to going crazy, maybe he is already there. For a moment or two, Terrence and Mary sat quietly either side of Dale and allowed him to speak. They listened to every word intently no matter if this man so happens to be crazy or not.

'It didn't want me' Dale says. 'I offered myself freely so that Karen can be returned but it didn't wat me. Went there many times, I heard the whispers, I saw the tree tops sway, I felt the river flow and still the place didn't want me. It picks and chooses who it wants, and it didn't want me, at least not in the way it wanted the others, not in the way it wanted Karen.'

All since when Terrence and Mary came into contact with Dale he had a gaze, a straight-ahead stare into nothingness, now he turns his head to Mary and speaks to her.

'You have lost someone to this place too ... you blame yourself ... don't do that, that place took what it wanted no matter what you could have done.'

Mary is completely flabbergasted, she tries to ask him about this, how he knows about her loss, but she can't get the words out. Dale now turns to Terrence.

'And you have already seen some of what I have seen, you have already heard some of what I have heard, and you have already felt some of what I have felt.'

'How do you know all this?' asks Terrence, his confusion reaching a new high.

'I have told you. The place is alive. It wants you too but not just yet and not in the exact same way it wanted all those others ...' Dale speaks while staring Terrence in the eyes. 'You are different. With you it struggles. Fight, fight it, if you can you have to do everything to bring them back, bring them all back. You can do this.'

Terrence has more questions. He begins to ask them, but Dale returns his gaze forwards speaking 'the place is alive' two more times then, speaks no more. No matter how they try, there is nothing more that Terrence and Mary can do in regard to this Dale fellow. He is once more lost to a world of nothingness.

A place cannot possibly be alive. This might just be something that Terrance will sooner or later get to find out. And what is this 'fight it' business? Bring them back? This Dale fellow cannot mean bring back the likes of his partner of over thirty-four years prior, Karen O'Neil. This Dale fellow cannot mean sixty-three-year-old Cecil Lynch, fourteen-year-old friends Jeremy Wright and Ken Torrance, their schoolteacher and shop owner who went searching for those friends and surely this Dale fellow mean bring back a seven-year-old boy, Mary's brother Todd?

Todd would indeed be twenty-two years old today if he were still alive, a fact Terrence already knows a little too well. There is something within Terrence, an unheard voice or possible a voice that is heard without having to speak and it tells Terrence that Todd is still alive and not only that, but Todd is also still only seven-years-old.

Meeting this Dale Blake fellow is not the only meeting that Terrance and Mary have arranged for this day. With how things have gone so far it may just be a good idea to pack it in, call it a day and head home. The next meeting has been arranged and planned for, might as well go for it.

This second meeting of the day is with a lady by the name of Susan Lynch. Her father was Cecil Lynch. Cecil was sixty-four years old when he was lost to that park, and he became lost on May nineteenth, 1997. Yeah, may as well go meet this Susan lady. Things cannot get any weirder than what they already are, then again. ...